What's New in SpreadJS v18.1
Designer Component Enhancements
File Size Reduction
We've significantly reduced the size of the Designer Component Add-on itself—achieving a 30% or more reduction in the JavaScript and CSS file size. This improvement comes from careful refactoring and optimization of the Designer Component codebase, leading to faster load times and improved performance across web applications. These optimizations make the overall development experience lighter and more responsive.
| Version | designer.all.min.js | designer.min.css |
| 17.0.10 | 7955 KB | 6285 KB |
| 18.0.7 | 8034 KB | 2697 KB |
| 18.1.0 | 5783 KB | 1819 KB |
Note: Reductions apply to the size of the Designer Component's runtime files, not exported spreadsheets.
Make sure to upgrade to SpreadJS 18.1 so your spreadsheet applications can benefit from these major performance gains!
Dockable Side Panels (Left or Right)
The SpreadJS Designer's dockable side panel significantly enhances user experience and efficiency. It allows users to flexibly adjust the panel position based on personal preferences or workflow needs, optimizing screen space while keeping the design viewport unobstructed. Additionally, it provides quick access to frequently used functions.
Multiple panels can be dragged to either side. They can be organized into Tabs or display side-by-side in a stacked order.
Learn more in our Dockable Side Panels docs.
Command Palette
Inspired by developer tools like VS Code, the new Designer Command Palette allows you to trigger actions with a simple keystroke (Ctrl + P on Windows or Cmd + P on Mac). Start typing and you'll instantly see a filtered list of available commands—ranging from formatting options and data actions to layout tools and navigation shortcuts. It’s context-aware, keyboard-driven, and searchable, so power users can access deep functionality without touching the mouse.
You can also customize which commands appear based on your Designer configuration, making it flexible for embedded solutions.
To try it yourself, launch our Designer and use Ctrl + P to open the Command Palette. Learn more in our Command Palette documentation.
Workbook & Worksheet
Worksheet Background Image
Add a full-sheet image for branding, watermarking, or instructional overlays. These backgrounds maintain performance and are visually responsive across zoom levels.
Learn more in our Worksheet Background Image docs or try our Worksheet Background Image demo.
Sheet Tab Border Radius Styling
Sheet tabs now support rounded corners via border-radius styling, allowing them to match modern design trends. Whether you’re mimicking Material Design or another design system, this small detail adds polish.
Learn more in our Sheet Tab Border Radius docs or try our Sheet Tab Border Radius demo.
Theme Font Support for East Asian Languages
SpreadJS now fully supports theme fonts for East Asian languages, ensuring accurate and consistent rendering across Japanese, Korean, and Chinese scripts. Fonts tied to a document's theme will automatically map to East Asian font settings, preserving intended typography when documents are opened, edited, or exported between environments.
Read more in our Theme documentation.
Calculation Engine
TRIMRANGE Function
This new function lets you remove empty rows and columns from the edges of a data range—especially useful for dynamic arrays. Optional arguments allow trimming of leading, trailing, or both sides.
Read more in our TRIMRANGE documentation.
REGEX Functions
Three new functions provide Excel-compatible regex power directly in-cell:
- REGEXTEST(text, pattern) – Validate a string pattern
- REGEXEXTRACT(text, pattern) – Extract substring matches
- REGEXREPLACE(text, pattern, replacement) – Clean or reformat strings
Learn more in our REGEX docs.
Calculate Formulas Outside Worksheets
New API capabilities allow formulas to be evaluated outside the visual grid—perfect for headless computation or formula processing in web services.
Read more in our Formula Calculation Outside Worksheet documentation.
PivotTable Add-on Enhancements
Performance Improvements
Internal benchmarking shows 30–50% faster rendering and interaction for PivotTables. Additionally, memory usage has been reduced by over 50%, leading to much smoother performance on large datasets.
Field Formatting Enhancements (Excel-like PivotTable)
Improved formatting controls let you apply number formats, font settings, and color styles directly to PivotTable fields, speeding up layout workflows.
Read more in our field formatting docs.
Chart & DataChart
Bubble Chart Bubble Scale
Developers can now programmatically scale bubble sizes in bubble charts, providing better clarity for wide-ranging datasets.
Read more about our Bubble Chart docs.
Category Axis Label Formatting & Units (DataChart Panel)
Customize tick spacing, unit intervals, and label formatting with granular control through both API and Designer interface.
Learn more in our DataChart configuration docs.
Framework Support
Angular 19 Support
SpreadJS v18.1 fully supports Angular 19, ensuring compatibility with the latest framework updates and TypeScript improvements.
Get started with our Angular QuickStart guide for SpreadJS.
New AI Add-on (Developer Preview)
The AI Add-on is currently available in preview mode and will be officially released later this year. Features may evolve based on user feedback and testing.
JavaScript Spreadsheet AI Assistant (Preview)
Built into SpreadJS and the Designer, the Assistant responds to real-time prompts for formula building, field explanations, and chart recommendations.
Get started with our AI Spreadsheet Documentation.
AI-Assisted Formula Generation and Explanation (Preview)
This feature enhances the Formula Editor Panel so users can describe their intent in plain language and receive a generated formula or an explanation for existing formulas, simplifying complex logic building.
Learn more in our AI-Assisted Formula documentation or try our AI Formula Assist demo.
AI-Assisted PivotTable Generation and Analysis (Preview)
Users can ask natural language questions (e.g., "Show average revenue by quarter") and automatically generate PivotTables.
Learn more in our AI-Assisted PivotTable docs or try our AI-Assisted PivotTable demo.
New AI Functions (Preview)
These powerful new AI Functions are available to use in cells. They offer insight and analysis of your data.
- SJS.AI.QUERY(text)- submit queries to an AI model for intelligent processing
- SJS.AI.TRANSLATE(text, targetLang) - enables translation of content into a different language
- SJS.AI.TEXTSENTIMENT(text)- analyzes the sentiment of text in cells
Learn more in our QUERY, TRANSLATE and TEXTSENTIMENT docs or try our AI Functions demo.
Collaboration Add-on (Developer Preview)
In our previous release, we introduced a Collaboration Add-on (Preview)—a real-time editing layer designed for multi-user spreadsheets. Users can collaboratively edit spreadsheets with synchronized cell updates and cursor tracking.
The Collaboration Add-on integrates easily into custom communication layers, giving developers full control over user sessions and update propagation.
To try our Collaboration Add-on, simply download SpreadJS and find the Collaboration demo in the Samples folder. We also have live demos and documentation coming soon!
The Collaboration Add-on remains in preview and will continue to evolve based on user feedback.